A Banner Birthday Celebration

It's been a good week on Trout Lily Lane.  The weather has been glorious; warm, sunny and the leaves are hitting peak.  I've been working outside, cleaning up the front garden, weeding and cutting things back. 

Yesterday was my birthday and it was an excellent day from start to finish.  I met my friend Alison for what has become our regular morning swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Such a great way to start the day.  We went out for a swell breakfast, I went to vote and then came home to spend the afternoon puttering outside.  Dinner with our buddies John and Michele; homemade pizza, fresh salad and champagne.  Then off to Playmakers theater to see The Parchman Hour.  An excellent play about a group of Freedom Riders in the 60's who were arrested and incarcerated in the notorious Parchman penitentiary in Mississippi.  To maintain their sanity, they organized nightly variety shows from their cells, singing and telling stories and jokes to get through the long nights.  Good music, singing, choreography and historical references.  Enjoyed by all. We topped off the night with dessert at the Lantern where I had a warm chocolate cake with roasted peanut ice cream, very tasty, but the star dessert was a coffee creme caramel.

If the quality of yesterday was any indication, I think its going to be a banner year.

In the yard the little Japanese maples have really come into their prime this week.  We have several that David dug from my fathers yard, seedlings of uncertain parentage, they have all developed quite well, some turning red others coppery at this time of year.  I look forward to seeing them mature over time.